Leadership Quote by Harri Holkeri

Spoken like a coalition-builder who’s spent years staring down parliamentary deadlock and still has to sound hopeful on camera. Harri Holkeri’s line isn’t trying to dazzle; it’s trying to discipline a room. The doubled phrasing - “many challenges, many obstacles” - functions as a preemptive concession: yes, things are hard, and no, no one gets to pretend otherwise. That rhetorical nod to reality buys him credibility before he pivots to the imperative: “let us try.” Not “we will,” not “we must,” but “try” - a modest verb that lowers the temperature and invites broad agreement, especially useful for a politician whose power often depends on keeping rivals in the tent.

The subtext is managerial, almost Nordic in its restraint: obstacles are not tragedies, they’re inputs. That mindset recodes politics as problem-solving rather than moral combat, a framing that softens conflict and keeps attention on outcomes instead of blame. It’s also a subtle rebuke to grievance politics. If obstacles can be “changed” into “advantages,” then public frustration should be converted into policy momentum, not weaponized into resentment.

Context matters: Holkeri operated in Finland’s consensus-heavy political culture and later in high-stakes international diplomacy, where grandstanding collapses negotiations. The quote’s real intent is less inspirational than stabilizing: to keep a group moving when the incentives to stall, scapegoat, or splinter are everywhere. It sells optimism, but the kind that survives committee meetings.